Once a Convict Hell Hole

Once a Convict Hell Hole

Norfolk Island is a 2hr flight due east of Brisbane, almost equidistant between Auckland and New Caledonia. It was first settled by Polynesians, then in 1788 the British arrived and made it a place where reoffending convicts were sent. It became a convict hellhole. New South Wales Governor Thomas Brisbane said ‘the felon who is sent there is forever excluded from all hope of return.‘ His successor, Ralph Darling, decreed that ‘every man should be worked in irons’ and Norfolk should be ‘a place of the most extreme punishment short of death.’ Convicts were starved, tortured and flogged by corrupt overseers. Norfolk Island served as a penal colony from 1788 to 1814 and then 1825 to 1855. The second penal settlement was considered to be the worst in the British Empire

Pauline Newman travelled to Norfolk Island and met Bethany Holland from the Norfolk Island Museum. Bethany describes aspects of Norfolk Island’s convict past and stories around museum objects including machinery operated by shackled convicts used to grind grain.

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